


1.000 sweaters

by ok_but_first_tea



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: AU - sweaters, F/M, M/M, fluff only alternate timeline, taako brand ideas, this is a no-pain au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 18:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16124231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ok_but_first_tea/pseuds/ok_but_first_tea
Summary: “Let’s do it.” Magnus said. Now it was Taako’s turn to be surprised.“Excuse me?”“No, I’m serious.” Magnus said. “Let’s do it.”





	1.000 sweaters

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, first of if you're reading this to avoid doing something else: You'll be okay and I'm sure you'll do great! I hope you'll find this fic an enjoyable way to take some time for yourself.  
> Second: If the thing you're avoiding is sleep: (big mood) go sleep!!! you can do it!! Sleep is good!!
> 
> Also shoutout to Sherm bc i appreciate Sherm big time and im like 70% sure they were the one to come up with this AU. (hope you like the cake my dude)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!! <3

The tension was high at the dinner table, as it had been all day. Taako and Lup had both been a little distracted while making dinner. Lucretia was still sulking over her rejected plan.

That afternoon Lup and Barry had presented their plan to split the Light, and unease was still thick in the air.

Dinner was still flawless, of course, despite its absent minded cooks. Not that the crew would notice if there was anything wrong, they were all lost in thoughts of their own. The faith of the universe was once again in their hands. It hadn’t gotten less heavy over the decades.

Besides the sounds of forks and knives scraping listlessly over plates and here and there some chewing, dinner was spend quietly.

That was, of course, until Taako spoke up.

“So here’s what I don’t get.” He said and felt the collective groan in of his friends in his heart, even if they were too nervous to actually vocalise it.

Davenport shot him a warning glance, which Taako, naturally, ignored.

“So why seven?” Taako asked. Everyone turned to look at Lup. She was usually the one to decipher Taako’s nonsense if no one else could. She blinked.

“Uhm,” she said, “Seven what?”

“Seven parts of the light of creation. You know, that thing we’ve all been obsessing about all day- We all have and we all know it too, don’t lie to me.” He said in an annoyed tone. “Like, here’s the thing, right? The light of creation is very powerful, natch. A seventh of that is still a lotta power. Like I get there are seven of us but that shouldn’t-”

“Just cut to the point, Koko.” Lup said. Maybe a little rude but she’d also been awake for just a little too long and the tension was just a little too much for her to be comfortable. They were all a little too tired to be polite anyway.

Taako rolled his eyes.

“What I’m saying is,” He continued, “What if we make like, a thousand of something. Like.. sweaters!”

There was a long silence. Taako took the opportunity of taking a big bite before inevitable questions and rejections would roll in.  
But instead…

“Let’s do it.” Magnus said. Now it was Taako’s turn to be surprised.

“Excuse me?”  
“No, I’m serious.” Magnus said. “Let’s do it.”

“I can’t believe you’re seriously considering this but not _my_ plan.” Lucretia said. She’d shoven her dinner aside in favor of letting her head rest on the table.

Barry shrugged, “It’s uhh- well. Sweaters are definitely safer than what I- uhh, what I had in mind to do with my part of the light. Lup, babe? What do you think?”

Lup frowned and watched the table with calculating eyes.

“Might be tricky to split the light into so many pieces,” She said eventually. “Not to forget, if they go rogue, there’s no way we’ll be able to collect all of them again. Not easily anyway.”

Barry nodded along, “How about a tracking system?”  
Lup squinted at the table “Hmm, like magic? Could work. Could work.” Though she still didn’t look convinced.  
Magnus cleared his throat. “If I may, Lup, I’m not sure how much damage a rogue sweater could do, and if they do- I don’t know, become evil. An evil sweater shouldn’t be too hard to spot, is what I think.”  
Lup sighed, looked at her brother, then at her husband and eventually back at her brother. “Alright, I’m in. Hell yeah, ‘Ko.”

“If I may,” Merle said, “I would love one of these sweaters.”

“W-wait.” Davenport said. “Before we do anything rash, I want to make sure everyone agrees.”

Some glances were exchanged. Some were a little more enthusiastic about the idea (Magnus), while others a little more begrudging (Lucretia), but in the end the agreement was unanimous.

“Well then, it’s decided. Sweaters.” Davenport sighed. “Why not? Sweaters. Alright.” he mumbled, a little at loss with the situation, but not much more lost than he was used to being.

“Doesn’t have to be sweaters.” Taako said through a mouthful of food.  
Magnus started pouting and Lup, still frowning, said “Too late, we’re doing sweaters.”

A small, but decisive nod from Captain Davenport was enough confirmation any of them needed.  
And so it was decided.

Sweaters.

 

It’s only a few cycles later they find the light, early enough in the cycle.

They’d been gathering wool wherever they could, spending dozens of spell slots on multiplying it. After the living space was consumed by the wool, Barry had taken permanent residence in Lup room, offering his room to what they’d dubbed the Soft and Itchy Hunger, 2.0.

Taako had joined his sister in her room later on too, having given up his room for their new wool storage. The opened up bedrooms were dedicated to the already knitted sweaters.

After a long, but too short to not go by fast, wait, they’d landed on a planet where the Light practically fell into their laps.

There was barely anytime to see what kind of planet they were at. Acting quickly, they got everything organised within a few hours of arrival.

“I don’t ever want to see any wool again after this.” Taako said while they were anxiously waiting on Barry and Lup to come back from their lab with the first few pieces of the Light.

Taako lay upside down on the couch, his feet up in the air.

“I kinda like it.” Magnus said, laying face down in a most recently spun puddle of the stuff. He methodically rubbed his hands in big circles over the itchy but soft bundles.

“ _Why did I ever think this would be a good idea._ ” Taako moaned. Right when he said that Lup came in. She had a big plate with a lot of glittery looking sprinkles.  
“Quit moaning, you Butt. First infinitely powerful glitter batch is up, where’re the sweaters?” She said. Barry was waiting tensely behind her.

The crew gathered round the pile of sweaters, all appropriately fashionable, courtesy of Taako. Every lump of clothing got one glitter while they sat around, holding their breath. The sweaters had already been enchanted to be always just the right temperature and size. They’d never fray or shrink in wash. Basically what the Light would do, as Barry had explained it, was take what they’d done to the sweaters, and amplify it to some degree.

The result should be one portable hug in sweater-form. If it worked.

They held their breath as Barry and Lup carefully lowered the Light into the sweater.

They held their breath as they watched it weave itself into the fabric.

They waited.

And nothing happened.

“Well.” Taako said. “That was anticlimactic.”

“Who wants to make sure we didn’t make a deathtrap?” Lup asked, her nerves shining through in the way that she sounded just a little too cheerful.

Before anyone could react Magnus already snatched the sweater, yelling “I do!!”

He pulled it over his head at the sound of Davenport’s worried “Be careful”-’s.

A few tense seconds were spend as the sweater molded itself perfectly around Magnus’s body.

“Oh wow, I’m never taking this off.” Magnus said.

Cheers went through the group.

“Alright! Everyone saw how we did the thing?” Lup asked, “Because you guys are going to have to do that, like, 200 times now, each.”  

Less enthusiastic noises went through the group.  
“Come on, babe.” Lup said to Barry, dragging him back to the lab, leaving the little glittering pieces of light on the coffee table.

Davenport clapped his hands to get attention.  
“How many sweaters do we have?” He asked.

“A million.” Taako answered, flinging himself back onto the couch.

“Eight-hundred-seventy-nine.” Lucretia said, and then added, “We still need about one-hundred-twenty-one if we want to do one thousand sweaters.”

“Well, we know what we have to do, let’s get going.” Merle said.

And so they did.

Taako orchestrated a bunch of needles to work ridiculously quickly on making some more, while the rest of the crew worked on their mind-bogglingly boring tasks. But hey, they’d done worse things!

Besides, the adrenaline of working with pieces of the shattered light was enough to keep them concentrated. The spontaneous karaoke parties (courtesy of Merle) while they worked also helped.

Grab sweater. Let Light flow into sweater. Put sweater on designated pile so Lucretia can keep track of them. Next sweater.

Barry or Lup occasionally would come by with more pieces of the Light and they’d ask them how it was going.

1022 sweaters later(plus the original one magnus was indeed still wearing), and they were all of of Omnipotent Magic Light. In the end, just 19 hours later, they were finally done.

Everyone was tired, and tense, and the wrongness of dividing something as divine as the Light of Creation was weighting them down.

But they were done.

Lup and Taako collapsed in a puddle on the couch, while Barry stretched his limbs.

He looked around the room, at his completely drained family, and said “I’m making hot chocolate.” in the most authoritative tone of voice he could muster.

Nobody objected.

 

“We will need some way of tracking them.” Lucretia insisted, leaning over the table.

“That’s a good point, Lucretia.” Davenport said from his seat at the wheel. “Maybe not forever, but just- Just for the first few months, we need to know where they are.”

Taako and Lup were lounged in an uncomfortable looking sort of jigsaw puzzle position, upside down on the couch. Lup’s head stuck out of the bundle of Elf, just barely resting on Barry’s knee, who was sitting on the couch like a normal person.

Taako and Lup were nodding along with Serious Faces, but it was clear to their family that they were hard on their way to falling asleep.

Magnus jumped up “We could do contracts!” He yelled, and then Magnus-Whispered (which is Normal-People-Talking) “ _magic contracts._ ”

Davenport sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright who’s feeding Magnus sugar?”

“I’ll stop.” Merle mumbled, sounding a little disappointed.

Magnus, who had liked jumping up to talk, and had decided to keep jumping, pouted.

“How about labels?” Barry asked. Lup nodded along from where her head lay on his lap and mumbled affirmative noises. Barry gently shushed her by stroking her hair.

Magnus gasped. “ **_Magic labels_ ** ”

“We could work that out, I think.” Barry said, contemplative. “For when people try to destroy the clothes, to have them automatically teleported, or we can call them all back up at once.”

“Oh! Like one of those whistles and when you whistle all the dogs come running at you.” Merle laughed. “I like those whistles.”

“ _Dogs._ ” Magnus Magnus-whispered.

Davenport rubbed his eyes and then cleared his throat. “That might not be a bad idea. But I still think we should- should work this out further.” He then glanced around the room. “Alright that’s enough, if someone would wake Taako and Lup.”

Barry frowned and looked at Lup. He really didn’t want to wake her.

Merle stepped closer to Davenport and lay a hand on his arm.

“Aw, hey, come on Dav.” he said. “You’re getting grumpy. The kids are tired.”

“Fucking Mood, my man.” Taako said with closed eyes, somewhere (somehow) buried in the Twin Puzzle Of Limbs.

Davenport stifled a yawn. “Maybe you’re- You’re right.”  
Merle wrapped Davenport in a hug, and Davenport lay his head on his shoulder in return.

Barry and Lucretia politely looked away to give them some privacy.

Magnus jumps started to become increasingly slower.

When Davenport spoke up again, his back stood a little straighter, and his eyes a little softer “Let’s all go sleep. Good work team.” Davenport said. “Lucretia, do you have-?”

Lucretia glanced down over her notes.

“1023 sweaters. Options: Binding contracts, discarded. Magic labels, capable of teleporting the sweaters to a safe and predetermined location.” She recited.

“Thank you.” he said, and then clapped his hands together. “Now off to bed. All of you.”

Merle smiled. “Bedtime kids, come on.”

“Fight me, old man.” Taako said, but he did levitate his sister and pulled her along towards their room. Magnus, crashing down hard from his sugar high, collapsed on the couch, draping himself over Barry. He experimentally poked Magnus to see if there was any hope of waking him up. Magnus only hugged Barry closer.

“You good, kid?” Merle asked.  
“At least I’ll be warm. I don’t think I’ll need a blanket.” Barry answered and patted Magnus hair absentmindedly. It was well known amongst the birds than Magnus was like a very big, soft space heater when asleep.

Lucretia yawned. “Night guys, night dad.”

“Sleep well, Lucretia.” Davenport answered. “Goodnight boys.”

Merle took his hand and together they walked to their rooms.

The soft rumbling of the Starblaster’s engine following the group’s snoring into the depth of the night.

 

Lucas looked over the blueprints for the moon, up to Lucretia, and then back to the blueprints again.

“And you’re still sure you want this many domes?” He asked.

“Yes.” Lucretia answered. She was put in charge of managing a central location. Lup and Barry sewing labels into the sweaters while the boys were off finding good places to distribute the already magically labeled ones. Davenport had (thankfully) stayed by her side while she handled things.

Lucretia was grateful to have someone to help guide her. She would have hated to do these things alone, even if all he did was stand by her side and not interfere much except offering her business partners tea every once in a while.

“Madam Director, with all due respect, I’m just not sure on how you’re planning on flying a moon into the sky without wanting people to notice.” Lucas said.

Lucretia frowned at the title he gave her. It had been a little joke of her family to call her all fancy while she was pretending to be a grown up. Though some nicknames from her family weren’t weird, they were basically always present in their household, but from _strangers_. She shrugged it off.

It sounded professional and kept people at a distance. She liked that.

“Don’t worry about it, Lucas.” She said. “I’m afraid it’s confidential but i have a trustworthy plan in place for that.”

Lucas hummed. “Alright boss, if you’re sure.” And his hisitance was fair.

After all, she hadn’t been sure on how to phrase that she was planning to feed a magic memory-vanishing jellyfish from space a paper that said “there is only one moon”, in a way that sounded calm and collected. So she hadn’t.

Davenport smiled, a proud glint in his eyes. He adjusted his monocle.

“So if all goes as planned, here will be a garage for my ship, and then here will be storage for my, err. Items.” She said while gesturing to the plans.

“Yes, yes. You know, there’s a lot of extra space up there. Are you sure you don’t want to fill it, or make it some smaller?”

“No.” She said decisively. “I don’t want to go back to the original plans. I’ll be taking my family with me and while we all can do with some extra room, I’m not looking for something quite like that.”

Lucas blushed at her mention of the original plans. He’d wanted to build a place the size of a city, which was maybe a little too ambitious in hindsight. They’d downsized it to a moderately sized village (with a lot of mystery storage). Lucretia was happy with the plans.

When Lucas finally ( _finally_ ) left, Lucretia fell back into her chair and groaned, throwing her arms over her face.

She heard Davenport’s footsteps coming closer. He laid his hand on her shoulder. She looked at him.

“I’m very proud of you, Lucretia.” He said.

“Thanks dad.” she whispered and enveloped him in a hug.

“Come on, it’s been a- been a long day. Let’s see how the rest is doing.” Davenport said.

“You think someone wants to cook or should we order Fantasy Take Out?”

“ _They have that here?_ ”

 

  
Kravitz was having a very weird day.

He was working on some chasing some minor necromantic cult through the woods. He’d just had one cornered when Kravitz looked up.

“By the order of the Raven Queen, you w-woah.” Kravitz blinked.

“What?” The necromancer asked, clearly unnerved by the interuption.

“That moon shouldn’t be here.” Kravitz said. “I mean, it’s just unbelievable. Can you believe it? Everytime I think I’ve definitely seen most of what can happen, and than this shit happens.” he complained.

The necromancer stayed tactfully silent.

“You see that too right? That moon over there. The second one.” Kravitz pointed through the trees at the whole second moon. The necromancer turned around to look.

“Uhh, yep. That’s a moon.” They said. “Is that.. Is that not supposed to happen?”

“Is that not- _is that not supposed to happen?_ How many moons do you think there are?!” Kravitz was basically yelling at his point.

The necromancers face turned thoughtful.

“I- I don’t. Uhm. Well there are two as far as i can see, but- I-”

Kravitz sighed and swung his scythe, catching the poor guy’s soul. Kravitz rolled his eyes, the only problem being him being a skeleton, so he didn’t get very far.

He settled to grumble grumbly.

He was going to get to the bottom of this.

 

And if a week later he had a date with a beautiful alien sun elf, than that might just be a weird, lucky coincidence.

And if a month later, he had two new red robed colleagues, than he might just have to accept that his life was weird now.

  


(and they lived happily ever after on the moon. The End.)

 

 

(Or is it…?)

…

..

.

 

.

 

Merle looks out over the beach. His old but lively eyes following the waves. A storm is approaching in the distance, but Merle isn’t worried. He’s here for a very specifically calculated reason.

It wasn’t a coincidence he was here, of all places.

A big, black splatter lands in front of him in the sand. It takes the shape of a vaguely familiar man. Upon closer inspection, you could see a million little cracks, shining with colors.

“Merle.” It says.

“John.” Merle answers.

“ _Where have you been?_ ” John asks.

“Ah you know, a little here, a little there.” Silence settles over them. Merle pats the space next to him in the sand.

“You look tired, old friend.”

John huffs but slowly moves to sit next to him.

“What happened?” Merle asks.

John swallows down a wave of panic, trying to keep himself steady.

“They left, Merle.” he says, watching the waves intensely. “They starved, and moved back. One by one, I thought I’d always be stuck. I thought-” A crack forms along John’s shoulder into his jaw.

Merle lays his hand over John’s.

“You’re free now.”

John nods. “You knew.” He says. Not accusingly, or surprised. Just a fact.

“Some of the planes had some trouble relocating.” Merle chuckles at a distant memory. “They’re all in place now.”

“Is that why you called? Why now.” John asks.

Merle glances over his shoulder, to the little cottage there. To where his family is. They’re watching him. Over in the astral plane a lot more of his family is waiting, but for today, his six travel buddies were brought in. Just to be sure. They’d worked hard on collecting all the sweaters, and then separating all the sweaters from the Light, and them putting the Light together.

They’d been mighty good sweaters. They had a good run.

“I called because I wanted to talk to you.” Merle says eventually.

John chuckles. A few more cracks appear in his face. “...I think I owe you an apology.”

“I don’t need one.” Merle says, and squeezes John’s hand.

John looks at their hands between them, and smiles.

“Thank you, Merle.” He says, “For everything.”

They both turn to look at the retreating storm. Nothing is said between them after that, until john eventually filtered out. His body, or what was left of it, couldn’t contain itself anymore. His soul had grown too old to go on. Merle sighed.

He waited for a moment, simply breathing, before getting up and retreating to the house.

His family owed him a drink. They owed him one last, final celebration before he’d follow his family into the astral plane.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is really the end now. and for if you're wondering: yes the boy detective joins the moon fam, but he's like, zero at the time to story takes place so i didn't have a place to fit him in.  
> Thank you for reading!! I hope the rest of your day goes exactly according to plan for you! <3


End file.
